Once a Flame
by InSanityStorm
Summary: Fire has many different uses. Written for FMA day, the 100 year anniversary of 3.Oct.11


**Hey guys,**

**Lookie at what I have for you~**

**It's pretty sad that I can only get my first fic out 'cause it's FMA day, 'cause how could I miss that? T^T I'll try and get better about writing regularly, but for now, just enjoy the oneshot, and have wonderful 3 October '11!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own. D:**

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><p>Name: Inferno<p>

Summary: Fire has many different uses.

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Rating&Warnings: T. Spoilers.

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><p><em>Fire. Combustion or burning, in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke.<em>

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><p>Fire has many different uses.<p>

In a house, it can be used for warmth. Life giving. Bright. In the winter people huddle around it. Happy times, gatherings, a chance to remind yourself that you're not really all alone. Al and I used to see this through the windows of the houses in the towns we traveled through. We would turn to each other, and I would smile at him, silently reassuring the empty suit of armor that our lives would be that way once he was restored.

Fire has many different uses.

It can be used for cooking, fancy or simple. Gracia's apple was one of the best pies I've ever had. I watched her bake it once. Winry promised she'd make one for us, after Al got his body back. I could tell that he would hold her to that promise. Al was always crazy about the idea of eating after and if I restored him. Every meal I said was worth having again, he'd note down. I'd imagine he'd be massively overweight if he actually ate all the stuff, based on my opinion of food, and the resultant list

I can't cook worth a damn. This theory has been proven time and time again, leaving us to scrounge off of other people, Al apologizing for my rudeness all the way. When we were little, mom tried to teach me how to cook. She would show me how to prepare the basics; like making my own soup and other stuff like that. Let's just say that that didn't work out.

Fire has many different uses.

I've seen it used for fighting, on the battlefield. In its minor form as ignition for a gun, or on a larger scale, burning the enemy's houses to the the ground. When you're out there on the battlefield, things don't move in slow motion like they do in films, they speed up. Now- I've never been in the middle of an _actual_ military war zone, but I've gotten close. I've seen the damage that can be dealt. I've seen horrors beyond horrors, things straight out of a nightmare. I hope Al doesn't remember... I always seem to journey back to Al when I'm reminiscing, don't I. Well, at least it's not a waste of thoughts.

Fire has many different uses.

I've seen it used as Alchemy, a towering inferno of flames, the heat almost unbearable. Damn that Mustang and his all powerful talents. I've seen him kill with it. I've seen him torture with it. I've seen it fail him at the wrong time, or kick him in the gut. I've seen him regret ever knowing how to control it at all. I've seen it save my own life countless times. I've seen it looked at as a blessing, and as a curse. My own mind screams at the unnaturalness of it. Alchemy is modifying the world around you, not the complicated air reactant crap that the Colonel had tried to explain to me once. Humans shouldn't have _that_ much power.

Fire has many different uses.

It can be used to erase the past. To create a fresh new start. That happens in the wilderness all the time. A wildfire sweeps through and makes room for all the new life sprouting around it, a needed tragedy. I remember. I promised never to forget. We burned down that house to create room for the new life we were starting. It seems rash now, but back then, to us; the brothers torn apart by a simple mistake and a step down the wrong path- it seemed right. A needed tragedy, and I didn't cry. As we watched our home go up in flames, my thoughts didn't stray towards the trace remains of our childhood now about to be destroyed forever, but towards the new path we were starting along. A promise. To get our old bodies back, and to never make the same mistakes again. We thought little about what we were about to head into, only focusing on our goals. If only we knew then what was to come...

Fire has many different uses.

With Al's body now whole again, and our journey finally completed after all the suffering, I fulfilled at least one of my other promises. We settled into the life I had reassured Al we would have; happy, joyful. Rejoicing in the pure sweetness of life. I married Winry, just like Al had predicted. We had started a family. A little boy and girl, both with blond hair. You could tell that they were Elrics from the second they were born, and boy, were they a handful. Life slowed down as the years passed by, Al becoming a couple with the Xing bean-haired girl (was Mei her name?), and every day I mulled over the adventures of the Elric brothers in their past lives. Before the Fullmetal Alchemist resigned from the millitary, before all conflict with what was left of Ishbal was resolved. Before they turned into old men. The last use of fire was one I'd never thought about before. I had never really had a reason to. But out of nowhere, it was time to face it. What do you do when death stares you in the eye, this time not in the heat of battle? What do you do when your own wife is gone, and your brother on his last legs? What do you do when your children's children have children? The first thing that runs through your mind is _when did this happen? When did we become old, when did we begin to loose all that we had left?_

_When did my hourglass run out of time?_

It's pretty ironic that when you finally think that you've got everything figured out, your clock stops ticking, and so does your heart. Fire has many different uses; the last I had never thought about before. I realized it in those last few seconds. Those few seconds before the flames attached themselves to the box my deathly cold body resided in. I see the tears of those that observe. I'm able to hear their whispers. _How did the immortal Fullmetal Alchemist end up here, in this casket? _I could ask them the same question. How was it possible for Mustang, and Hawkeye, and all my old millitary comrads to just... _dissapear_ from the earth? The audience also whisper of other things. About how the irony is almost erie, how the date that they weren't even supposed to know graced the calender on the day he died. The third of October. A hundred years, huh? I did promise never to forget, after all.

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><p><strong>Phew! Thanks for reading guys, this is my first FMA fic, so kinda nervous. This was just a drabbly thing, set in my signature confusing crap format xD. Hope you liked it, and remember, reviews make my <em>life.<em>**


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